AN: Next chapter is here, yay! I have some plans for Naruto's Academy years, but I'm always open to suggestions. The only thing I have left for his first year is the Kurama clan thing, and that should only take two or three chapters at most. Anything you can suggest for his second year at the academy, hit me with them, and if anything in particular inspires me, I'll use it, 'kay?
Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord
Chapter 24 – One Day Later
The next morning, Naruto made a detour on his way to the Academy, deciding to pass by the Uchiha district. There was no great reason for him doing this, he simply… decided to do it. Perhaps he wanted to see it in daylight, see what had happened to the place without the dark of night hiding it away.
He couldn't get very close though, there were Anbu patrolling the outside, most probably to keep curious people like himself out. Of course, just because he couldn't get in didn't mean he didn't notice certain things. One such 'thing' was a raw throated scream of despair.
"What the hell was that?!" Naruto hissed, his eyes darting around for the source. However… no one else seemed to even react to it at all.
"It sounds like wailers." Benio, in butterfly form, murmured from her perch on his hat.
"What are wailers?" Naruto asked.
"Dead humans." She said. "Don't worry about them, they'll fade away in a few days, maybe a week or more."
"They're… ghosts?" Naruto guessed.
"Not quite." Benio corrected him. "While yurei do exist, they're pretty rare, it's not often humans become youkai after all. Wailers are simply remnants that have clung to this world, either in despair, anger, or whatever else. Like I said though, they'll fade pretty quickly. Oh, and before you get any ideas, don't try and talk to them, they're not rational and will almost certainly attack you."
Naruto flinched as he heard a despairing wail resound through the air, unheard by the humans who remained oblivious to the entire macabre horror, one that went deeper than just a body's physical remains. The discordant noise of screaming, wailing, and cries of fear and terror… and he was the only human who could hear it.
"This is… just so disturbing." Naruto murmured, before turning his back on it and quickly hurrying away. Unknown to the blonde, he hadn't gone unnoticed himself. The Anbu patrolling the perimeter to ensure no one just wandered into the Uchiha district had seen him, and more importantly, they had seen his half of the conversation with Benio.
xxxxx
In his office, Hiruzen held himself back from sighing with frustration.
Everything was a mess. In fact, it was probably more of a mess than it could otherwise be at all. If the Uchiha massacre hadn't happened, he wouldn't have to deal with all of this paperwork. If all of them had been wiped out, then he could have dealt with it in one mass. Instead, with almost a dozen survivors, he had to deal with it more carefully.
The hospital staff were doing their best to save the remaining Uchiha, as despite Naruto managing to stabilise a grand total of seventeen members of the clan, six of them had succumbed to their injuries since. The remaining eleven looked like they would live though, and if/when Sasuke came out of his coma, that would make for a grand total of twelve Uchiha from a clan that had previously numbered in the high hundreds.
The biggest problem for the Hokage was working out which ones might have known about the planned coup, and therefore which ones might work out the true reason behind Itachi's actions. If they learned of such a thing and the information was spread about, the village may just fall apart. After all, treason or not, annihilation of an entire clan was an extreme measure.
Sasuke, Hiruzen knew, wasn't aware of the massacre, and he doubted Marie, barely ten years old, knew of it either. The fresh genin, Tsubaki and Shirou Uchiha, were rather unlikely as well. However, Genma Uchiha, who was only two years younger than Hiruzen himself – retired due to loss of limbs and failing eyesight – might very well know about it, as could the five surviving chunin or the two jounin that remained.
On top of all of this, there was Naruto to consider too. Aside from being the one to discover the massacre and save as many as he did, there were two further things on the Hokage's mind. First off, there were the strange creatures that Naruto had created, his 'shikigami' that appeared to be some sort of fuinjutsu equivalent to solid clones, or at least used in a similar manner. He wanted to know where Naruto had learned that skill, and who might have taught him.
The other fact staring Hiruzen in the face was that Naruto obviously knew about the biju he contained. How could he not when he'd found a way for the fox to exist outside the seal? That worried Hiruzen, and it might have contributed to why he was so… 'snappy' with Naruto when they'd last spoken.
However, aside from having other things on his mind – primarily the Uchiha incident – Naruto had said some things that Hiruzen had reacted badly to. His tone as he referred to the first Hokage, Hiruzen's teacher whom he had a great deal of respect and admiration for, clearly indicated his low opinion of the man.
While Hiruzen was by no means fond of the kyuubi, and couldn't help but hold it responsible for many deaths and the threat it represented, he could have acted a little more diplomatically with it. Acting as antagonistic as he had seemed to only damage his relationship with Naruto, as the blonde had quite blatantly taken the fox's side against him.
That was not good. Naruto already lived outside of the village, even if his home wasn't too deep into the forest, and he barely had any connections to it. Every other potential ninja was either from a clan, in which case they were from a family loyal to the village, or a civilian that had grown up there, and therefore had at least some patriotism in them.
Perhaps he could change that. After all, Naruto was clearly capable of keeping a secret, and it was possible that he was already aware of his connections to… certain individuals. With that small hurdle out of the way, there may be a small handful of people who could connect to the young blonde.
"Crow, find Kakashi and bring him here. Retrieve Raido, Genma, and Iwashi as well." The Hokage instructed one of his ever present Anbu.
The Anbu flickered out of the room, leaving Hiruzen to try and recall who knew Minato and Kushina on a personal level. If he could get them to chat with the boy, maybe he would be able to reach out and not be such a social recluse. Of course, it would also help if he had some friends his own age or thereabout, but while he appeared to be on fairly good terms with his class in general, none of them stood out as being particularly close.
Maybe, if the younger Uchiha were cleared… perhaps they may be able to befriend the blonde.
xxxxx
Passing through a park on his way to the Academy, Naruto was glad of a distraction from the wails and screams still bouncing around in his head, though they now seemed to be accompanied by the giggling of his 'other' self, his personal demon.
Of course, what he was less than happy about was the nature of the distraction. A group of kids his own age were gathered together, quite obviously surrounding something, and when he asked one of the ever-present inchlings what they were grouped around, he found out that it was a girl in the middle of the group.
"Think you're so high and mighty, don't you?!" A plain looking girl with her nose in the air sniffed disdainfully. "Well, you're not! My daddy's a merchant, he makes loads of money, and he doesn't just sit around all day doing nothing like you 'nobles' do."
Naruto didn't see what the other girl did in response, but he didn't catch a verbal response. He wondered who exactly it was in the middle of the group, as it sounded like it was a clan kid from what the girl had said. At least, he couldn't think of anyone else in the village who might be referred to as a 'noble', unless someone was visiting from the capital.
"What's going on?" Naruto called out aloud, making the group turn to him. Several of the kids looked at him curiously, though there were several that appeared fearful, most likely a product of whatever stories their parents had told them about the 'demon child'.
One of the kids at the edge of the group came over to Naruto.
"There's a pretty, rich girl from one of the clans here. Mio's bragging about how rich her dad is again, and when the girl didn't do anything, Mio got annoyed." He said. "She doesn't like being ignored."
"So she's bullying someone to make herself look bigger?" Naruto clarified, getting an uneasy look from the boy, but he did nod his head reluctantly.
"Mio thinks she's better than the rich kids because her daddy actually works for his money." The kid told him. "She says that the kids born to already rich parents are all just spoiled brats that need to learn what hard work really is."
Naruto took a look at this 'Mio' girl, and wondered if she was just repeating something her mother or father had told her. After all, she didn't look that physically active, and she was wearing an ankle-length dress, not the most practical outfit for physical work.
Mio looked at Naruto and wasn't impressed with what she saw. His 'odd' clothes – duster coat and broad-brimmed hat – made him look foreign to her, so he was probably a visitor with his rich parents or something.
"What's it to you?" She asked him. "My daddy's the best merchant in Konoha, so there!"
Naruto, still with the wailing of the dead ringing in his ears, really didn't want to deal with this, so he chose one of the quicker methods of dealing with it.
"Does that matter?" He replied. "Rich or not, bullying is bullying, and if your dad is a merchant, surely he told you about making a good impression on customers? Don't you think you're being a bit rude?" He said, trying to work on her obvious affection for her father.
"She's just a rich girl who obviously gets whatever she wants. I'm just letting her know that not everyone is going to bow down to her because she's from a big clan." Mio retorted.
"And all of these guys around her? It looks like you're all bullying her… and I don't like bullies." Naruto began to raise what little killing intent he possessed and levelled it at the group. While it was nothing compared to what an average ninja could produce – and he wasn't going to borrow Kurama's KI to enhance his own – it was more than the kids were really prepared for, and they froze in shock at the feeling.
That didn't last long though, and they quickly fled from him.
Naruto sighed. That wasn't going to be doing his reputation any favours, but he didn't regret chasing them off the girl. Now, who was it that had been in the middle of all of that?
Looking where they'd been, Naruto was surprised to see someone he actually knew. Dark blue hair and pale eyes, it was the Hyuuga girl in his class, Hinata if he remembered her name right. She was a quiet and shy person who, while she answered Iruka's questions correctly when asked, didn't offer answers up herself.
"Hinata?" Naruto gave a sort of awkward wave hello. "Um, hey, so..." He trailed off, unsure what to really say.
"Ah, th-thank you, Naruto." She stuttered quietly.
"No problem." He replied. "I'm just surprised to see you by yourself, aren't you usually dropped off by one of the branch family?"
"M-most of the family was c-called out last night." She told him. "Ko was one of them, and I g-guess that they forgot to a-assign someone else to m-me."
Naruto nodded in understanding. The Hyuuga, Aburame, and Inuzuka were the three main tracking specialised clans in Konoha, and it sounded like there was an all out manhunt for Itachi already. Things didn't quite add up though, as Naruto clearly remembered the tears streaming down Itachi's face, not to mention the fact that Naruto clearly recalled treating injuries from two different types of blades.
"Um, d-do you want to w-walk to the a-academy together?" Hinata asked.
"Yeah, sure." Naruto agreed, falling into step beside the shy girl.
Hinata sent Naruto frequent glances as covertly as she could while they walked. He was her classmate, but she didn't really know very much about him. He got questions right when asked, and even volunteered answers every now and then, but he seemed a bit distant to everyone else, not shy so much… more like he didn't really know how to deal with people his own age.
Even now, he looked kind of awkward, like he didn't know what to say or do with her walking beside him. His eyes kept flickering about the place, pausing every now and then, before he appeared to look at something, something she couldn't see even when she discretely activated her byakugan.
"So… how are you enjoying the academy?" Naruto asked, for lack of anything else to say.
"It's good." Hinata replied. "I like l-learning new things, s-so I look forward t-to that." She tried to stop her stuttering as much as she could. She'd been told numerous times that her submissive and shy demeanour wasn't going to do her any favours in the future, and while being demure was fine in most cases, she needed to learn how to be more assertive.
"Are you enjoying it too?" She asked, pleased that she'd said it without a stutter, even if she was quieter than she'd intended to be.
"Sure, I guess." Naruto agreed. "I already knew most of the theory stuff we're reading, especially the history and the like. I prefer the kunai and shuriken accuracy we're doing, and I'm really looking forward to sparring. Those two are what I'm weakest at, so it'd be good to get some practise in, you know?"
"Ah, I guess." She mumbled. "I don't really like fighting myself. I… don't want to hurt anyone."
"Well… you should at least learn how to take care of yourself if you're ever in trouble, right?" Naruto said hesitantly, not entirely sure what direction this conversation was going in. "Once you can do that, maybe you can branch out into other types of things? I mean, if you don't want to hurt anyone, you could become a medic, or you could use paralytic or sleep poisons, or… maybe learn how to use a net! That's not very common for ninja, so it'd surprise an opponent if you fought with one, right?"
"Really?" Hinata asked, imagining herself beating people without actually hurting them.
"Yeah, and there's other stuff as well. I mean, a whip isn't very lethal, but that can be an effective weapon can't it? And I'm sure there's all sorts of rope and wire techniques that can tie someone up." Naruto continued, happy to have found something that the girl seemed genuinely interested in.
He continued chatting on about whatever weapons and techniques he could think of that could be used non-lethally, from bolas and traps to staffs and nets. This continued until they reached the academy and went to class. Naruto grinned as he took his seat, he believed that he may have made a new friend!
xxxxx
"You called for us, Lord Hokage?"
Hiruzen didn't reply immediately, looking over the four men now stood in front of him. Each one had a relatively strong connection to the fourth Hokage, one had been his student and the other three had been his personal bodyguards, as little as the man had needed such a thing.
"I did." He eventually said. "I have… a request for you three. This is not a mission, and it is completely voluntary, but I don't think you'll find it especially distasteful."
"What do you want us to do, Lord third?" Raido asked.
"I wish for you to befriend one Naruto Uzumaki." Hiruzen bluntly told them, earning surprised looks from all four of them. "Now, you know what he is, and also who he is, but this has nothing to do with that particular set of circumstances. No, I want Naruto to develop stronger bonds to the village, as currently I see them as being tenuous at best."
"May we know what brought this on?" Iwashi asked. "I mean, it all seems a bit sudden… unless it has something to do with the Uchiha incident last night?"
"Last night is when I found out about it." Hiruzen told them. "It was Naruto who first discovered what happened, and it's purely down to him that there still are living Uchiha in the village. However, I found out several things that… surprised me."
He paused there, getting his thoughts in order.
"He is aware of his burden, and appears to have a rather low opinion of those that have… previously confined it. I believe that he also knows of his own heritage and is not particularly impressed with the village, no doubt encouraged by the attitudes of some of the villagers." He explained.
"I can't say I really blame the kid." Genma said. "I mean, I've heard some of the shit that they're spewing, and it's ridiculous. I suppose stuff like that is why the previous vessels identities were kept secret?"
"That and a lack of ability to use its chakra." Hiruzen admitted. "Naruto might be the first one to actually use it properly given his apparent friendship with his prisoner." Hiruzen also recalled feeling biju chakra circulating in Naruto's body last night.
"So… you're asking us to make friends with a, what is he, an eight year old?" Iwashi asked for confirmation.
"It's a request, not an order, and you don't have to be friends. Just try and become something for him, whether that be an older brother, a parental figure, an uncle, whatever, it doesn't matter. I simply worry for and about him, and while I still hope he'll make some good friends his own age, I only want what is best for him." The Hokage replied.
"You believe he knows about his… parents?" Kakashi finally spoke.
"I do." The Hokage responded.
"Then I might have a few stories for him to hear, if he's willing." Kakashi volunteered. "Any more than that… I don't know whether I can make a friend, though I might be able to manage being an older brother. That's what I would have been, had sensei survived."
Hiruzen gave Kakashi a pitying look. The young man was socially stunted, and had taken Minato's death badly, even worse than his own father's suicide. He'd made something of a recovery in the years since the kyuubi attack, but Kakashi had never been the most social of people, even as a child himself.
"There's not much I can really contribute." Genma then said. "Kakashi would know more stories about his dad than I would, and he's an academy student, what could we really bond over? If I tried making friends with an eight year old, it'd probably come across more creepy than anything else." He shrugged. "Still, I've got nothing against the kid, and I'll keep an eye out for him if nothing else."
"Like Genma, there's not much I can really do here." Raido added. "I can keep an eye on him, and if he graduates the academy I could be his jounin sensei, but right now? We have no reasonable reason to get close to him, not unless you want to use the Uchiha incident as an excuse. Perhaps say we're keeping an eye on him in case Itachi comes back or something, you did say he was involved in the mess last night after all."
"That's only an excuse, and a flimsy one at that." Iwashi countered. "It'd be better if it wasn't an assignment, maybe a 'concerned' older ninja that won't clearly say why they're worried until they slip up and mention the kid's father. That'd work best for Kakashi though, everyone knows how much he looked up to Lord Fourth."
"Deception isn't really the best way to start any sort of relationship." Genma pointed out. "If he found out it was a trick, or even just started off as one, it could collapse and do some serious damage to his trust and faith in adults. Of course, that's if he's not suspicious of us to start with. Kids are both the most and least trusting people there are."
Hiruzen sat back and watched the four men argue and discuss the various merits in different ways of approaching Naruto. He hadn't had to do much and already they were considering his request, whether they realised it or not. Whether anything actually came of this or not, Hiruzen believed that it would be good for not just Naruto, but Kakashi as well.
xxxxx
In Konoha's hospital, in one ward in particular, the curtains were drawn back so the occupants could all see one another. In separate beds where eight males, all of which were Uchiha. These eight, along with the four females in the next ward on the corridor, were all that remained in the village of a clan that once outnumbered some of the smallest ninja villages.
Only seven of the room's occupants were awake now, Sasuke Uchiha remaining in a coma due to what his brother Itachi had done to him. His vital signs were strong though, and the staff were confident that he would make a full recovery once his mind overcame the effects of the genjutsu he had been subjected to.
One of the other occupants of the room, maybe half a decade or so older than Sasuke, was glaring at the younger boy with eyes full of hatred. In one hand, off the side of his bed, he clutched a sheathed sword with a white knuckle grip.
"Give it up, brat, he's not going to burst into flames no matter how much you glare at him." Akira Uchiha, a twenty-three year old chunin, sighed.
"You heard what the doctors said." Shirou, the glaring boy, spat. "He was genjutsu'd into a coma! No other injuries to speak of! That fucking bastard left him alive while he slaughtered the rest of us! Maybe the kid's in on it and he'll kill any of us left alive. I don't trust the little shit and I never will."
Akira grumbled before speaking clearly once more. "Yeah, it's obvious he was left alive, and while I'm not going to be turning my back to the kid any time soon, he's still the only main house Uchiha left, the clan heir after Itachi's rampage has made him… ineligible, but we've got other problems to deal with."
"Like what?" Shirou growled. "We're stuck in the bloody hospital if you hadn't noticed, and after this what is there? This room and the next has all of the Uchiha left. Just yesterday there weren't enough rooms in this damned place to fit our clan in properly."
"Exactly." Akira shot back. "You think I don't know that!? You lost your parents kid, but I lost my wife and son too, so don't think you're the only one who suffered because of this."
Shirou didn't look pleased, but he didn't retort. He already knew that lots of people had died. Heck, none of the remaining Uchiha were closer than third cousins. Parents, siblings, children, spouses, friends, and so many more lost to the celebrated clan prodigy. Fuck, it made him sick!
The old man Genma then let out a sharp bark of laughter, though there was very little humour in it. "And to think that it's only because of the village pariah that we're still alive. I've never thought much of the little blonde midget, and now I owe him my life!"
"Pariah?" Shirou asked to get his mind off his dead relatives. "This 'Naruto Uzumaki' they mentioned? What do you mean when you call him that?"
Genma let out a huff. "What are they teaching at the academy these days. The signs are all there but no one has put it together." He grumbled. "It's punishable by law to talk about it, brat, but it's enough to know that a portion of this village hates his guts, and before you ask it's not because of anything that he did, but something that was done to him."
Akira nodded in agreement. "It used to be that our clan avoided him almost completely. After all, it wouldn't do to have us 'influencing' the beast, especially when it's known just what a previous member of our clan did with it under his control."
"What are you two talking about?" Shirou demanded, not at all happy with being left out of the loop.
"Something we can't talk about openly." Akira told him. "Either work it out yourself or find someone willing and able to divulge village secrets to you. Heck, the kid himself should be allowed to tell you, if he knows about it himself of course."
"Oh, I think he knows." Laughed Genma. "I wasn't quite unconscious when he treated my injuries, and I quite clearly saw 'it' stood beside him, talking with the blonde midget. It wasn't as big as I remember it, not by a mile, but I saw that beast once before and I will never forget it's likeness, not if I were to live to a thousand."
"Okay, seriously, stop doing this!" Shirou huffed.
Akira sighed, looking back to Shirou. "Look, kid, we legally can't tell you. It's a stupid law that was put in place too late to stop people finding out about it, but everyone your age and younger was kept out of the loop because of it. It's not the most well kept secret, and if you ask around I'm sure you'll eventually find some idiot who'll tell you. Just don't be surprised if an Anbu tells you to stop asking those sorts of questions."
Shirou accepted that and leaned back against the pillows in his bed, looking around at the other male Uchiha in the room with him. Only Sasuke was unconscious, but none of the others were in any state to be talking. One guy had his throat bandaged up and may never speak again, and the other three were just staring blankly at the walls or ceiling. While he might be dealing with loss via anger, they didn't seem to be handling it as well as he was.
He collapsed backwards onto the bed and lay down fully. The doctor's had said that the best of them would be out in a couple of days, after observation, but… what the bloody heck was he going to do? His parents were dead, killed by their clan's 'greatest' ninja since Madara Uchiha, and he was only a genin.
What would become of the Uchiha clan? Sasuke might be the clan head's son, but there was no way that an eight year old could represent a clan. Genma was the oldest Uchiha left, but he had a rather caustic personality and had made plenty of political enemies with his blunt and degrading comments. Of the other adults still alive, none really stood out as being capable of leading the clan.
Of course, they could barely be called a clan now, what with their only being a dozen of them left. It would take decades at least for them to regain what they'd lost in a single night, and that was assuming none of those left alive died on missions, had plenty of children, and that they would all be at least decently skilled.
While Shirou didn't put as much stock in the inherent 'greatness' of the Uchiha, he was still proud to call himself one, just as he was proud of his burgeoning sword skills. He knew that things were going to change now, and he didn't know how they were going to change.
That… honestly scared him.
Would the twelve remaining Uchiha all move into one, or several adjacent – homes together? Would they be expected to get along just because they were related to each other? Just what was going to happen to them?
Questions chased each other around in his mind, each one more depressing than the last. All he could really do though was hope for the best-
-and prepare for the worst.